The Top Ten Books I’ve Read So Far This Year

10. The Marriage Plotby Jeffrey Eugenides. I was drawn to this book by the promise of an English-major protagonist named Madeleine (my name, my major!), but I was a little disappointed by both Madeleine, who spent most of the story pining after a boy, and the novel as a whole, which I thought seemed too normal after reading Eugenides’s Middlesex. It wasn’t a bad read, though; it kept me interested.

9. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evilby John Berendt. This was a fantastic true-crime book that read like fiction. The characters were incredibly unique and engaging, the crime itself was very suspenseful, and the town of Savannah was a character in itself.

8. Loud in the House of Myselfby Stacy Pershall. I reviewed this here!

4.. Bossypantsby Tina Fey. This memoir is really quite hilarious. Even better than reading it is listening to the audio book, which is read by Tina Fey herself. After listening to her book, I love her and her dry sense of humor even more.

2. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Koreaby Barbara Demick. I plan to write a review on this tomorrow – it’s the harrowing stories of several North Koreans who survived the famine of the late ’80s under Kim Jong-il and eventually defected, at great risk, to South Korea.

1. Bastard Out of Carolinaby Dorothy Allison. My new favorite book, and one of my top ten protagonists. I’ve written a review here.